Opinion How green was my IT city

It is also a tragically familiar story,played out over and over in a city in the midst of explosive growth. Green activists say some 40,000 trees have been felled in the last few years to make way for infrastructure projects. It is the de-greening of a city whose historical appellations Garden City and Air-conditioned City now seem like misnomers.

It also signals the horrifying demise of an aspect that made Bangalore the rarest of global cities — a metropolis with an abundance of shaded boulevards and tree-lined streets,whose canopies sometimes provided such a thick cover that the sun barely streamed through the big-leaf mahogany,neem,tamarind and rain trees even in the summer.

Bangalore’s real heritage is not its old buildings,its scientific institutions or its software companies. Its real legacy is the elegance of its tree-lined boulevards,says Leo Saldanha whose Environmental Support Group rallies around ecological causes. Saldanha might soon need to rephrase his words in the past tense though.

A walking survey by his group counted an average of 150-200 trees — some dating back to the early part of the last century — per kilometre of Bangalore road. Barring a few cities such as Hanoi and Boston,only Bangalore has such a profusion of streets bordered by trees,says

Saldanha.

The cheerless tree stories continue to pour in. A military memorial has become controversial because it will take over invaluable green space in the heart of the city and lead to the severing of a dozen trees. Earlier this week came the news that yet another road-widening project on the verdant Jayamahal Road,abutting the Bangalore Palace estates,would leave over a thousand dead tree stumps. That widening is on the back of similar projects on beautiful landmark streets such as

Seshadri Road,Palace Road,Hosur Road,Sankey Road and Race Course Road.

The impact of such large-scale denudation is palpable. Researchers at Atree,the Ashoka Trust for

Research in Ecology and the Environment,say that difference in temperatures (a dramatic five per cent),humidity (20 per cent) and pollution levels (four times) in Bangalore’s tree-lined and bare stretches can directly be tracked to the massive loss of tree cover.

With 41 per cent of India’s population expected to converge to its urban centres by 2030,it is time to rethink ecology and understand its urban manifestation such as trees,parks and water bodies,says Atree’s Harini Nagendra.

Vinay Sreenivasa,who researches urban issues in his day job,is chief volunteer at Hasiru Usiru which crusades for saving the city’s green cover. “Bangalore’s roads are changing because of the loss of greenery,” says Sreenivasa. The so-called gentrification of neighbourhoods has only led to their complete deterioration,he says. But the bad news is not over yet. Road-widening projects,flyovers,metro rail,mono rail,high-speed airport trains and an assortment of projects will not just denude roads but also parks in the city,despite strident campaigns and alert civic groups like Hasiru Usiru and Cubbon Park Mitra Sangha. Some 261 road-widening projects are in the works,snaking 500 km through the city.

Other groups are attempting to restore the green by planting trees. Trees for Free counts 24,000 trees — in the city’s far-flung layouts and even small satellite towns like Doddaballapur and Anekal. “Instead of crying over Bangalore’s lost trees,we encourage individuals and companies to sponsor tree planting at Rs 100 a sapling,” says Janet Yegneswaran of Trees for Free. It is becoming a fad to plant trees on birthdays and anniversaries,she says.

All that is well,but chopping century-old trees in the city centre and planting saplings in the distant suburbs is a feeble solution,says activist Saldanha. Is Bangalore headed to become another horrendous urban sprawl like Los Angeles,he wonders.